I just read an article claiming that people living alone suffer greatly from “decision fatigue.” Apparently, there are 35,000 decisions each person makes every day, and though that number seems to be accepted, no one knows how that number came to be established.
A lot of those “decisions” sound like habit to me. To hit the snooze alarm or get out of bed immediately. To take a morning shower or to brush one’s teeth. To drink one or more cups of coffee. To drive to work or take the bus. All things people do by rote.
Some decisions, such as what to wear, are also by rote, because whether they know it or not, people tend to wear uniforms, such as business attire when going to work or jeans and a top when staying home.
Most of my decisions lie in the category of habit, which is why I blog every day — I don’t need to make a decision about whether to post something. I just do it. I sometimes need to make a decision about what to write, but I generally just go with whatever flows. (Unfortunately for you, it adds another decision to your list — read or not read.) Nor do I have a lot of decisions to make when it comes to food. My meals are simple and getting simpler all the time because of food concerns and a growing aversion to cooking complicated (and not so complicated) dishes.
I am on a watering and yard maintenance schedule, which also removes the need to make decisions. When I see something in passing that needs done, I do it immediately, which saves on having to make a decision later. Of those hypothetical 35,000 decisions that people make every day, I consciously make a dozen. Maybe less. Even the decisions I do make, such as whether to play a game or read are instinctual. When I get bored reading, I play. When I get bored playing, I read.
I tend to think this is the same with a lot of retired people. Working life, of course, would heap decisions on people, decisions they would probably not want to make but have to, but the article wasn’t about the difference in decision fatigue between working people vs. retirees. It was about how people living alone are more at risk for decision fatigue.
The article postulated that those who live alone have to make all the decisions in the household. One example the writer gave was coming home from work. If you live alone, you have to decide what to eat, as well as make all the decisions that come with meal preparation. If you live with someone, that person might have a meal ready or could help decide what to fix and when to fix. That’s when the claims in that article fell apart for me. I couldn’t help but think of all the single parents who come home from work, have to cook dinner, have to take care of the kids, have to do all sorts of things and make all sorts of decisions that people living alone don’t do. Sometimes, if it’s a two-parent household, one person does have a meal prepared, but that isn’t always the case. And sometimes one, or even both, have many more decisions to make than single people because more people in the household means more people to make decisions about. Making those decisions also takes way more time and energy because of all the needed discussion.
Luckily for me, I live a simple life. Most of my major decisions, such as where to live, have been made. And since I live alone, if I don’t want to make a decision, I don’t. There is that old saying, “not to decide is to decide,” but for sure, not deciding takes a lot less energy, especially for someone like me who generally doesn’t care whatever way a decision might go. Of course, not caring about the result of a decision leads to other issues, such as inability to do anything that requires a decision to be made because it’s almost impossible to decide between two equal situations.
Still, that’s something to worry about another day. Or not.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
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